Posted on 08/28/2004 6:50:28 PM PDT by ahadams2
Breakaway Anglicans won't vacate churches
Bishop trying to evict two parishes that left church over blessings of same-sex unions By Douglas Todd, Sun Religion Reporter
VANCOUVER: Two B.C. priests at breakaway Anglican parishes are defying their former bishop's request to vacate their church properties, which are together worth more than $1.2 million.
The two Vancouver-area conservative priests – who recently left the Anglican Church of Canada because they vehemently oppose same-sex blessings – say their congregations have no intention of saying goodbye to the buildings in which they have worshipped for years.
“We own the premises and we’re carrying on as usual,” said Rev. Ed Hird of the North Vancouver parish of St. Simon’s which has about 200 members (note: actually 360 members, 160 average Sunday attendance).
“We’re not going to leave,” said Rev. Barclay Mayo of the newly renamed Christ the Redeemer Church in Pender Harbour. It has about 120 members.
Both priests say their lawyer, a prominent evangelical Christian named Bob Kuhn, believes the conservative parish members have legal title to the properties and predicts they would win their cases in court.
Hird and Mayo said they will leave their long-time church buildings only if forced out by legal means.
“Of course, we’d follow the law,” Hird says.
A spokesman for the Vancouver-area diocese of New Westminster said he hopes the dispute with the two parishes doesn’t have to end up in court. He criticized the protesting clergy for being ‘confrontational’.
“I think it’s unfortunate. It’s not of our choosing,” Chancellor George Cadman said in an interview.
Although Cadman ‘respects’ the parishes’ decision to opt out of the Canadian Church and operate under the authority of an Anglican Archbishop in Rwanda, he said there is no legal precedent for the congregations to take control of church property since they were asked in July by the diocese to find somewhere else to worship.
The two activist priests are more than a dozen in southwestern BC who have grown furious over the past few years as Vancouver-area Bishop Michael Ingham and a majority of members in his diocese began favouring rites to bless committed homosexual relationships.
Cadman, legal advisor to Ingham, says he has not seen a single case in North America in the past five years in which a congregation that has broken away from the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Episcopal churches has been able to take its property with it.
Mayo and Hird were among at least four BC priests who recently joined their congregations in leaving the Anglican Church of Canada, whose governing body, at the urging of Ingham and others, passed a controversial motion in June “affirming the integrity and sanctity of committed adult same-sex relationships.”
On Thursday, Mayo condemned the national church as ‘apostate’. He said in an interview he and like-minded Anglicans are tired of “suffering under the oppression it’s foisted on us.”
Hird said he believes conservative activists in BC will gain international backing for their cause from two major events scheduled in the next month.
More than 700 conservative Christian activists are gathering Tuesday in Ottawa for a conference called Anglican Essentials, where delegates will try to sway Canada’s bishops to censure Ingham.
And next month, a top prelate in the 70-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion, Irish Archbishop Robin Eames, will release a report on how to hold together a church that threatens to break apart over the issue of homosexual rights.
Hird hopes Eames’ panel, called the Lambeth Commission, will lead to Ingham either ‘repenting’ his support for same-sex blessings or being disciplined by the international Anglican Communion.
Canadian conservatives holding onto their property ping.
Common sense indicates that homosexuals never needed the imprimatur of religion to engage in immorality and they don't need it now. After they rip the communion apart, they will leave, all they are trying to do here is cause trouble.
Same kind of property fight coming down in the Episcopal Church here in Pittsburgh, where a liberal parish has preemptively sued a conservative diocese. http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20031025episcopal1025p5.asp
One for the list!
the parish you mentioned is being backed by the episcopal church senior leadership - and the humorous part is, they have no reason to sue (yet) - like the 'rats, they just sue so that it forces the conservatives to spend time and money to answer the lawsuit.
ECUSA knows it is the church of rulers and kings and the mighty. Noblesse Oblige and liberal PC secular guilt has always trumped orthodoxy at all levels. It is only a matter of time till the rest of the world sees the light and catches up - according to the ECUSA. ECUSA is willing to turn a blind eye to the truth for the sake of cold hard cash on the barrel. Going, Going, gone - sold to the GLTB crowd....
It is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven.
How many registered Episcopalions go along with the ECUSA rather than build new churches and create new endowment funds. It is hard to let go of financial security for the sake of truth.
Some masonic websites state that the Anglican church (CofE) has been overseen by masonic handlers since its inception. Even the queen complains of the shadowy influences controlling the show in England. Even if this is untrue it tells a lot about the confidence many place on the distance the church has maintained from apostolic orthodoxy.
These true Christians are welcome to re-join the Church anytime -- the Catholic church will also accept married Anglican clergy if they believe the teachings of Christ
well some have gone to Roman Catholicism, and about as many have gone to Missouri Synod Lutheranism, but the vast majority will be staying with the rest of the Anglican Communion as we finally work to rid ourselves of the post-modernist heretics in our midst...similar to what you folks are trying to do with AmChurch.
Well said!
Though I have left the ECUSA, I still consider myself a loyal and faithful Anglican. The Anglican tradition is one worth fighting for!
That wouldn't help. The Catholic church has also become infested with liberals at various levels and has exhibited excessive tolerance on the part of its Bishops.
This happened over ten years ago with the United Church, I believe. Once again Marxists principles employed by the heretics - seize the property as the means of production.
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